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Consumer Technology

How to Be a Star in a YouTube World

What it takes to stand out when anyone can be an entertainer

There are millions of people trying to get noticed on the Web, with everything from blogs to podcasts to videos. So with the huge glut of material out there, how do amateurs get attention -- let alone become bona fide online stars?

How, for instance, did an Arizona woman giving grammar advice get to be one of the most popular podcasts on iTunes? And how do independent video series like "Ask a Ninja" or "LonelyGirl15" draw hundreds of thousands of online viewers for each episode?

It turns out that success in the new-media world depends on a lot of the same things as in the old-media universe. Just as in Hollywood, becoming a hit takes talent, effort, timing and some luck. Sex appeal is just as valuable online as off. And getting noticed by the "mainstream" press also helps build buzz.

Most important, though, is the way Internet stars exploit the power of the Web. They employ all the social-networking tools available on new-media sites like Google Inc.'s
YouTube, inviting fans to comment on their work, link to it and even copy it. And they draw on email, subscriptions and other tools to alert fans about new offerings.

"The most popular are the ones who have really tapped into the social fabric" of the Internet, says Jamie Byrne, head of product marketing at YouTube.

To be sure, the definition of stardom on the Web is vastly different than in traditional media. "If someone appears for 30 seconds on 'American Idol,' they have more exposure than the single most popular individual on YouTube," says Rishad Tobaccowala, chief executive of Denuo, a new-media consulting unit of French advertising and marketing company Publicis Groupe SA.

Recently, for instance, "American Idol" drew about 29 million viewers for one telecast, while the most popular YouTube video that same week, a preview for the "30 Rock" season finale, was viewed about 580,000 times.

But even if the potential audiences are smaller, aspiring online stars still face plenty of competition. There are hundreds of millions of short videos on the top video-sharing sites. Apple Inc.'s
iTunes alone counts more than 100,000 audio and video podcasts. Yahoo Inc.
says that as many as one and a half million photographs are added to its Flickr photo-sharing site daily. What's more, much of the most popular material on these sites comes from traditional media, making it harder for amateurs and newcomers to stand out.

So, what's the magic formula for Web stardom? Here's a look at some of the secrets gleaned from looking at those who have already blazed that trail.

BE CONSISTENT

Many of the most popular podcasters and video bloggers take a lesson from traditional media and offer new content with a disciplined regularity.

"Shows that are consistent have a tendency to grow more than those that aren't," says Todd Cochrane, a podcaster and founder of RawVoice Inc., which builds podcasting sites for individuals and companies.

The Journal Report

The video blog "Rocketboom," for instance, has been delivering three-minute news programs five days a week since October 2004. "Grammar Girl," a popular podcast about proper language usage, gets an update every Thursday like clockwork. That regular schedule is crucial to the podcast's creator, Mignon Fogarty. "When the shows I listen to don't come out, I get very frustrated," she says.

Even those who don't add new material on a fixed schedule try to add new work regularly. The "LonelyGirl15" video series, for instance, strives to maintain the illusion that it's a teenager's personal video blog, so it doesn't keep to a regular timetable. Still, its producers add as many as five new episodes a week. In less than a year, they've completed more than 175 episodes.

Steady updates are also a rule for Rebekka Guoleifsdottir, arguably the most popular contributor to Flickr. The 28-year-old art-school student in Reykjavik, Iceland, typically adds two or three new pictures a week, for a total of about 750. Her work has been viewed more than three million times, and her popularity on the site led to a contract with Toyota Motor Corp. to provide photography for a local marketing campaign.

GET IN EARLY

When "Rocketboom" went online in late 2004, the idea of a video blog -- posting commentary and news in video form instead of regular text -- was still novel. Andrew Baron, the program's producer, says that the program had a small but loyal audience of about 700 daily viewers within a few weeks of launching.

The site got a big surge in viewers later that year, when "Rocketboom" collected and broadcast user-made videos of the tsunami that struck coastal areas of the Indian Ocean. Traffic really took off the following March, after a new-media conference in Austin, Texas, focused on podcasting and video blogging -- and "Rocketboom" was one of the few examples.

"We definitely had that first-mover advantage," Mr. Baron says. "It gives you a big advantage -- if you can stay afloat. Now that it's much more saturated out there, people who have big dreams may have a more difficult time."

Since it's harder to break in now, aspiring stars must do more to stand out. They must have a new twist on an existing idea or do an old idea exceedingly well, such as produce a video series with very compelling storytelling.

FIND A NICHE

Newcomers could also look for a niche that hasn't yet been filled -- such as "Grammar Girl."

It's hard to imagine a less likely Internet hit: In each three-minute episode, "Grammar Girl" -- Ms. Fogarty -- discusses a different grammar topic, such as run-on sentences or the active and passive voices.

So why does the show consistently rank in the top 40 podcasts on iTunes? The show is well produced. There are no other top educational podcasts on iTunes that cover questions of style, usage and punctuation. "Grammar Girl" found a narrow niche that a surprising number of people are interested in. "Everyone has a pet peeve or some question about writing," says Ms. Fogarty, 40, a former technical writer in Gilbert, Ariz.

"Grammar Girl" has also caught the eye of mainstream television and newspapers, appearing on "Oprah," and in USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, where a brief mention last November caused traffic to jump nearly 40%.

Now Ms. Fogarty is exploring new niches. In addition to her own show, she now produces six other advice podcasts featuring other people -- including "Mighty Mommy," about parenting, "Money Girl," about finances, and "Legal Lad," about the law. The network gets about a million downloads a month.

WORK YOUR NETWORK

Online hits depend heavily on word of mouth -- and Internet stars are good at working the virtual room. Mr. Baron of "Rocketboom" seeded his audience by alerting a small online discussion group on video blogging about his plans for the new site. On Flickr, Ms. Guoleifsdottir made contacts by commenting on the work of other photographers on the site, which in turn attracted notice to her work; her comments included a link to her own photos. She also maintains her own Web site and a MySpace page where she shows off work and communicates with fans.

Journal Report Podcast

WSJ's Michael Totty interviews Chris McCaleb and Ryan Wise , writers and directors of the online video series "Prom Queen" about the differences between working in the old media world and the new digital age.

These techniques were used aggressively by producers of one of the biggest breakout hits in the YouTube age, "LonelyGirl15." The series purports to be the video diary of a teenage girl, who talks into a Webcam about her likes and dislikes, and her family and friends, and who is at the center of a series of mysteries. In reality, "Bree" is played by actress Jessica Rose -- a fact disclosed in a flurry of media coverage last fall.

The show's creators began building a fan base even before the first episode. The LonelyGirl team -- Miles Beckett, Greg Goodfried and Mesh Flinders -- would post comments about other videos on YouTube using the LonelyGirl15 screen name. This let the fictitious character build up name recognition, and a network of friends, on YouTube when there weren't as many users as today. The creators also would have the character post remixes of other people's videos; these received as many as 4,000 daily views.

Subscriptions were also a big help. YouTube -- like iTunes and other sites -- allows visitors to "subscribe" to their favorite producers, automatically receiving new material when it's put online. When the material gets enough subscribers, the sites will put it on a "most popular" page, where it gets even more attention.

When the first video, featuring Ms. Rose, went online last year, "LonelyGirl15" already had a couple of hundred subscribers, Mr. Goodfried says. Less than a month later, a posting on July 4 was viewed about 500,000 times -- enough to get highlighted on YouTube's Most Viewed page -- and the show took off.

"There's definitely a cumulative effect on YouTube," says Mr. Beckett, who came up with idea for the series and is an executive producer and director. "The more subscribers, the more your views go up, and that gives you a chance for the more casual visitor to see your video."

The show now has about 91,000 subscribers on YouTube and attracts about 200,000 visitors a day to its Web site -- numbers that were boosted considerably by all the media attention. Its most popular episodes have been viewed more than a million times.

ACT LIKE A PRO

The Web is full of material that looks like it was produced by amateurs. The most popular material is definitely more polished than the rest of the pack -- even though it may look rough by TV standards.

Although all its fans know that "LonelyGirl15" is a fiction, the producers still strive to give the show the look and feel of a teenager's video diary. Episodes are shot with a Web camera or the kind of consumer video camera a student might own, and are edited and mixed with basic home-computer software.

A lot of work goes into making the videos appear unstudied. Not counting time writing, Messrs. Beckett and Goodfried estimate that each three-minute episode takes about 10 hours to produce. That includes preproduction -- such as finding props, lining up the cast and scouting locations -- filming and postproduction editing.

Much slicker looking is the video podcast "Ask a Ninja." In each episode, a black-clad performer uses questions from viewers to launch comic riffs on the legendary Japanese assassins. In a recent show, a viewer asked, "Do ninjas write poetry or are they just murderous shadows of death put on earth only to act against mankind?" Answer: "Wow, I didn't realize those were the only two options."

The show has been among the top 25 podcasts on iTunes since shortly after its debut in late 2005. Its most recent episodes have been downloaded about 180,000 times apiece, and the videos on the show's Web site get about 350,000 views for each episode. The show was recognized as the "best series" in this year's YouTube Video Awards.

"We hated the first episode; it moves so slowly," Mr. Sarine says. "But we just went back and tried to do it better with each episode."

BEAUTY SELLS

OK, this is probably not all that surprising: People who are unusually attractive stand a much better chance of getting attention.

It's no accident that some of Ms. Guoleifsdottir's most popular photos are self-portraits, some of them clocking more than 15,000 views each. When she first started putting her photographs on Flickr, she admits intentionally choosing pictures, "some of them a bit revealing," to draw in viewers and comments. "I wasn't taking myself too seriously," Ms. Guoleifsdottir says.

By the time she started posting more serious work, she already had a large audience of devoted fans, who followed her updates and commented on her pictures.

Similarly, "Rocketboom" built an audience around the good looks of its anchor, Amanda Congdon. Indeed, Ms. Congdon became one of the first true stars of the nascent world of video blogging, drawing about 200,000 viewers a day to the show and inspiring comments by prominent bloggers. Ms. Congdon left the site last summer and later was hired by ABC News' site to host a video blog. She was quickly replaced at "Rocketboom" by another anchor with made-for-TV good looks, former MTV video jockey Joanne Colan.

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